I've pondered the six month recruitment (never shorter!) routine of the Witnesses and how this has an impact on the recruit. I think this deliberate conversion allows time to acclamitize the recruit to allowing questions to remain unanswered. I also think the exit is similarly slowed as the exiting Witness carefully disentangles disinformation from reality. The Scientologist by comparison, seems to "snap out" of it as fast as they "snapped in". It's a theory, anyways.
Planning exit, alternative venues to preach?
by Goodstein 54 Replies latest jw experiences
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Goodstein
That's a good point, really, that the blood doctrine has to be weighed against the smoking doctrine, and things only get more complicated from there - the mental illness caused by shunning versus the social stability other people get from it, keeping families from breaking up in trivial divorces versus keeping people in abusive relationships, etc. It's not an easy call.
It's the high control aspects - not being allowed to leave without drastic social consequences, the information control, the demand for perfect loyalty - that primarily make it a cult. For health effects and time demand, it's not quite a wash, but the situation isn't totally clear either, in my opinion.
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jgnat
The "no blood" policy targets the vulnerable; newborn infants, young mothers, leukemia sufferers, those who require an organ transplant, and victims of accident. Smokers give themselves a shortened lifespan at an indeterminate future date.
The divorce rate, regardless of the WT's stated beliefs, is higher than the general population. http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/244746/1/Jehovahs-Witnesses-and-Divorce
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Band on the Run
Jgnat,
I was surprised by the divorce rate. It makes a lot of sense, though.
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jgnat
BOTR, I was expecting it to be about the same. My reading of Barna statistics, which compares evangelicals against the general population, led me to a general assumption that people's behavior, regardless of stated beliefs, follows that of the general population.
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Londo111
As a child of a JW elder father who was an alcoholic, I can say that despite any “stress on moderation on alcohol”, in practice, many JWs are anything but moderate with alcohol. From all accounts, in the 70’s and 80’s, overdrinking was a way of life at Bethel.
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Monsieur
jgnat wrote - "Here's a zinger I gave my husband. That week there was talk of the apostacy that the Greek philosophers introduced to Christendom, so hubby was parroting it. It just so happened that I was working through Plato's Republic, and I got to the part that talked about heaven. I quoted it to him. I asked it if it sounded familar (Paul's transport to the second heaven). I then pointed out that Plato had written his account a couple hundred years before Paul. So who copied who?"
I've come to debate this type of question with myself.
In fact, if you get down to the nitty gritty of the teachings regarding the annointed (and this is from a purely Scripturally point, NOT so much JW interpretation) there are many similarities with it to 'standard' philosophy.
That all humans have the capacity to become or reach a higher 'state' of being or existence thru shedding the corporal shell of their physical bodies. To ultimately become god-like or God himself.
The teachings of Paul fall neatly into this 'philosphy'. Interestingly jgnat, Paul also referred to Christ as being the key to the 'real' philosphy, hidden from man for centuries, but revealed in Christ. In other words, to get a shot at REALLY reaching a god-like state (eternal and immortal) one must do it through that path of Christ, not Plato or Socrates etc. So Paul in many ways DOES refer to Plato for example, but only to rebute his teachings in favor of Christ's.
Paul's claims are one of many elements that are factoring (or hoping) into discovering an 'Absolute' truth that answers all my personal questions regarding the 'state' of man and its real raison d'etre so to speak.
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jgnat
Another similarity between Paul and Plato is the idea of a higher state altogether, and a repudiation of this flawed, material world.
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neverscreamagain
jgnat- Interesting comment you made earlier about whether ones leave quickly or slowly.
I have noticed too that people that came into the borg quickly seemed to exit just as fast, and ones that took longer amounts of time to be recruited did not exit or fade as much, or when they did it seemed like they tok more time to fade.